“Yes, I do! I believe that now, as in the past, the pure in heart shall see God. Why, heaven is over all, and pretty nigh to some.”
And I thought of Cicely, and couldn't help it.
“I believe there are pure souls, especially when they are near to the other world, who can look in, and behold its beauty. Why, it hain't but a little ways from here,—it can't be, sense a breath of air will blow us into it. It takes sights of preparation to get ready to go, but it is only a short sail there. And you may go all over the land from house to house, and you will hear in almost every one of some dear friend who died with their faces lit up with the glow of the light shinin' from some one of the many mansions,—the dear home-light of the fatherland; died speakin' to some loved one, gone before. But I don't believe you can coax that light, and them voices, down into a cabinet, and let 'em shine and speak, at so much an evenin'.”
“I thought,” says she bitterly, “that you was one who never condemned any thing that you hadn't thoroughly investigated.”
“I don't,” says I. “I don't condemn nothin' nor nobody. I only tell my mind. I don't say there hain't no truth in it, because I don't know; and that is one of the best reasons in the world for not sayin' a thing hain't so. When you think how big a country the land of Truth is, and how many great unexplored regions lay in it, why should Josiah Allen's wife stand and lean up aginst a tree on the outmost edge of the frontier, and say what duz and what duzn't lay hid in them mysterius and beautiful regions that happier eyes than hern shall yet look into?
“No: the great future is the fulfillment of the prophecies, and blind gropin's of the present; and it is not for me, nor Josiah, nor anybody else, to talk too positive about what we hain't seen, and don't know.
“No: nor I hain't one to say it is the Devil's work, not claimin' such a close acquaintance with the gentleman named, as some do, who profess to know all his little social eccentricities. But I simply say, and say honest, that I hain't felt no drawin's towards seancys, nor felt like follerin' 'em up. But I am perfectly willin' you should have your own idees, and foller 'em.”
“Do you believe angels have appeared to men?”
“Yes, mom, I do. But I never heard of a angel bein' stanchelled up in a box-stall, and let out of it agin at stated times, like a yearlin' colt. (Excuse my metafor, mom, I am country bred and born.) And no angel that I ever heard on, has been harnessed and tackled up with any ropes or strings whatsoever. No! whenever we hear of angels appearin' to men, they have flown down, white-winged and radiant, right out of the heavens, which is their home, and appeared to men, entirely unbeknown to them. That is the way they appeared to the shephards at Bethlahem, to the disciples on the mountain, to the women at the tomb.”
“Don't you believe they could come jest as well now?”